Chats on Costume

by G. Woolliscroft Rhead

A certain affectation by the ladies of male costume made its appearance towards the close of the century. Laced and buttoned coats and waistcoats were worn, together with a smartly cocked hat surmounted with a feather. It also appeared earlier, during the reign of Elizabeth, and was satirised by Stubbes, and later, in the Spectator, by Addison. We picture Die Vernon in a habit of this kind, which was chiefly worn for riding, but also for walking. Fielding describes the appearance of Sophia Western at the inn at Upton in a similar habit.

MISS LEWIS.
Engraved by James Macardell.

The rigidity of the bodice at the commencement of the Hanoverian period was an echo of an earlier time, when Good Queen Bess strutted it in wheeled farthingale. It was strongly fortified with whalebone strips, and formed a V in front.

One of the chief characteristics of the dresses of this period was the naturalistic floral patternings, which were seen everywhere, and even invaded the dress of the men, whose waistcoats were gay with embroidered flowers. This floral patterning was the outward and visible sign of the general interest which was then taken in natural form. Linnæus, at Upsala, was propounding his botanical system; gardening was generally popular. Mrs. Delany thus describes a dress which she saw at Court in February, 1741, and which is sufficiently indicative of the generally prevailing taste: "The Duchess of Queensberry's clothes pleased me best; they were white satin embroidered—the bottom of the petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds, and every breadth had an old stump of a tree that ran up almost to the top of the petticoat, broken and ragged and worked with brown chenille, round which twined nastersians, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, convolvuluses, and all sorts of twining flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat; vines with the leaves variegated as you have seen them by the sun, all rather smaller than nature, which makes them look very light; the robings and facings were little green banks with all sorts of weeds; and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose, twining branches of the same sort as those on the petticoat. Many of the leaves were finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the gilding of the sun."

THE GAMUT OF LOVE.
From an engraving after Watteau.

The quilted petticoat with figured panniers which is associated with the name of Dolly Varden is a charming dress of the rustic or idyllic sort. Like the rigid bodice, it was a development of the dress of an earlier period; it was, in fact, the stiff outer kirtle of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods looped up in folds.